Product Description
Feckless, unwashed, charming, penurious Sebastian Balfe Dangerfield, Trinity College Law student, Irish American with an English Accent, maroon in the ould country and dreaming of dollars and ready women, stumbles from the public house to the pawnbrokers, murmuring delusive enticements in the ear of any girl wholl listen, in delirious search of freedom, wealth, and the recognition he feels is his due. Lyrical and ribald, illuminating, poignant and hugely entertaining, The Ginger Man is a work of authentic comic genius.
Rate Points :3.5
Binding :Paperback
Label :Abacus
Manufacturer :Abacus
ProductGroup :Book
Studio :Abacus
Publisher :Abacus
EAN :9780349108759
Price :$16.50USD
Lowest Price :$9.68USD
Customer ReviewsA Joy
Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :5
I read this book in awe, my jaw hitting the floor with each beautiful sentence that went by. Donleavy was a master wordsmith, who created an amazing character in Sebastian Dangerfied. Hes pathetic, hes horrible, hes a waste of space, and yet Donleavy somehow makes him kind of likable, and finds the beauty in this very human story.
My hero
Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :8
This was an almost incredible, maybe even impossible character and story if it wasnt for the fact that Ive actually MET people like this -many were my friends... and me!
People going nowhere, people setting up scams to make the next meal, people not having a plot to their lives -even if they do they may as well not have one, and trying not to die with their pants down in the process. And in all this one has got to laugh at the preposterous hot waters they find themselves in case in point, one Sebastian Dangerfield (the protagonist). Harsh situations that are all the funnier because they are creatures of the protagonists own creation not only making his own life but the lives of others miserable. He admits this himself throughout the novel and doesnt care to let one know, for he is the ginger man.
Sebastian Dangerfield is not completely callous, however. He is a complex individual similar to the hero of The Catcher in the Rye that is if the latter were more... inclined toward whoring and boozing it up (my hero!). There are moments of deep feeling and even shock at the way the world has been let go to the gutter, and of course the culpability is on everyone. There are instances of very human qualities in the heart of this character -at least a longing for these, for despite it all things like love, warmth, friendship, simplicity, true joy, are all things awfully hard to come by... one has to wonder how true these are in our own lives. The author skillfully portrays it all with brilliant sentences that swing effortlessly from powerful poetics to sports-bar speak to choppy machinegun descriptions of inner and outer worlds (my hero!). All this is quickly missed if the reader is unimaginative, slow, moralistic, and insensitive.
Nevertheless, none of the above should detract from what is the main feature of the novel: it is funny as hell!!! Read it.
Funny as Hell, True as Heaven
Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :3
If there isnt a little Ginger Man in you, youre a bore.
A manifestation of human desire in its physical state - JP Donleavy is brilliant!
Rating Point :5 Helpful Point :0
Let us all join with Sebastian Dangerfield to rear up in horror at the abominable way in which society treats its antiheroes! Such a rascal is Dangerfield - a drunken womanizer, a leech and a lech, a brilliant schemer, self-righteous prude, a man in decline, yet rising up, each time, from the bowels of hell through a catharsis of his own wit and imagination. J.P. Donleavy is brilliant. This picaresque novel, written in a modified style of stream of consciousness, is constantly moving, giving the reader little time to ponder a moral or ethical dissection of Dangerfields antics.
Dangerfield is, after all, a manifestation of human desire in its physical state. He desires, and attains, the finer things in life yet, each attainment is followed by his own predictable calamity of foibles and follies, through gluttony and his own rapacious wolfishness. Mr. Donleavy is masterful in his choice of every word. Short phrases, separated by periods, create a visual world in full bloom, while pulling the observer (you, insatiable reader) through the emotional rollercoaster being felt by Dangerfields soul. Such a scoundrel deserves hatred and banishment. In our own observance, we become the enablers of Dangerfields unconscionable acts, finding ourselves, (surprisingly), unwilling to give him his deserved punishment, forgiving him his transgressions as swiftly as his Mary does. He is, after all, a sensitive soul. Who could argue with that?
J.P. Donleavys prose dances on the edge with his poetic verve and descriptive style. Each chapter ends with a slice of verse - a summary of each poignant situation in which our roguish suitor finds himself:
"I set sail
On this crucifixion Friday
With the stormy heavens
Crushing the sea
And my heart
Twisted
With dying."
Shake off the shock
Rating Point :4 Helpful Point :2
Jump right in and be prepared at first to hate Dangerfield. Hes everything you want to despise in a someday-will-be trust-funder jerk. The antics, strangely, will grow on you. After I finished I found myself reading certain choice chapters again (do you feel a breeze?--although my favorite- the Christmas tirade).
A worthwhile read that does not waste any time-- while giving us that aspire to write a fresh look, and those of us going after the Top 100 a checkmark....
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Mysteriously rich and desperately lonely, George Smith appears to be under attack from all quarters. His former wife and four horrible children are suing to get his money, and someone is sending him threatening letters. Despite some very elaborate prPerennially short of funds, Cornelius Christian accepts a job at a funeral home in order to pay for his wifes burial. A series of madcap adventures commences in what Donleavy calls "the great sad cathedral that is New York City."
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